Gerry Pond, tech pioneer and investor, dies at 82

Gerry Pond, the former NBTel chief executive who became one of Atlantic Canada’s most influential technology investors and mentors, died July 8 at the age of 82.

Don't have an account? Create Account

From his base in Saint John, Pond, who was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017, helped to transform New Brunswick’s telephone company, co-founded Mariner Partners and backed startups including Q1 Labs and Radian6.

But those who worked with him say his greatest legacy was the generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders he developed.

Frank McKenna, who served as New Brunswick’s premier during Pond’s tenure at NBTel, told Brunswick News that Pond’s investment of time and energy in the next generation of entrepreneurs was his greatest legacy.

“Gerry Pond is like a stone in a pond, and the ripples continue even today. His proteges are populating organizations and companies all across Atlantic Canada, and in turn creating more jobs and more opportunities,” said McKenna, now a banker with TD Bank Group.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being who was a greater force multiplier than Gerry Pond.”

Rising in the ranks from a telephone operator to the CEO’s chair, Pond turned the New Brunswick telco into one of the country’s most technologically advanced telephone companies in the 1990s. He embraced early technology and welcomed the advancement of broadband and fibre-optic internet.

He joined the telephone company as a 22-year-old who had just graduated in 1966 with a psychology degree from the University of New Brunswick, after growing up in the remote logging community of Sanmaur, Quebec.

He oversaw a revolution in communications technology. By the time he retired as CEO in 2001 at age 57, the telco had been folded into Aliant as a regional phone company – a merger he opposed. Aliant later became Bell Aliant.

But retirement was never in the cards. Pond would go on to a second career and invest in about 30 technology startups, most of them based in New Brunswick, through his venture capital firm East Valley Ventures.

East Valley is the venture-capital arm of Mariner Partners, a global tech consulting firm Pond also founded. Both entities are headquartered in Saint John.

He was an early backer of two New Brunswick tech companies: Q1 Labs, a cybersecurity firm, and Radian6, an industry leader in social media monitoring. Both companies were acquired in 2011 in deals that became landmarks for New Brunswick’s technology sector.

His obituary notes he also co-founded and backed other successful IT startups in the province: Cirrus 9, Tutella, Brovada, and Smartskin Tech.

Jeff White, who was chief financial officer of both Q1 and Radian6, called Pond “a technology visionary” who “could see things that technology could do that others couldn’t imagine.”

But more importantly, White said, was that he recruited “incredibly smart people.” This, he said, was Pond’s “real superpower.”

“Gerry knew how to nudge, push, and guide teams along the way.”

“He would just empower us,” said White, who built Radian6 along with its co-founders, developers Chris Newton, Marcel LeBrun and Chris Ramsey.

Asked about the importance of Pond’s seed money in the two startups, White emphasized that Pond’s knowledge, experience, time and energy were a key to their success.

“Some people are very risk-averse. Gerry was willing to bet his money on those teams because he thought these teams could build something pretty meaningful.”

Before fibre-to-the-home service became commonplace, Pond was already anticipating it.

“I have a prospectus written in 1999 that talked about fibre to the home. Gerry did that.”

In an interview, White described his close relationship with Pond.

“I was so privileged to have like a ringside seat with Gerry. It was very personal, very personal. My career intertwined with all of that,” said White, adding Pond’s legacy will live long into the future.

Pond was big on customer service, which came naturally to him as a people person.

“People matter, therefore customers matter,” was Pond’s business motto, White said.

McKenna was a close friend of Pond for some 30 years and described him as “truly inspirational,” adding that at NBTel under Pond’s direction, “their calling card was service, and there was nobody better at it.”

“Not only did he create a lot of jobs in his own right through Mariner and East Valley, but through his mentoring and through his venture capital investing, he literally helped to spawn dozens and dozens of companies, some of which went on to become unicorns, many of which are still in existence today, and they in turn have created thousands of jobs,” McKenna said.

“And that’s why I talk about him as such a force multiplier. Everybody who worked for him would say the same things.”

But, despite the enormous value of the companies Pond backed, McKenna said he was modest and self-deprecating.

“He was low-key, but he was inspiring, and he inspired loyalty.”

“He was my partner in crime for probably 30 years. He was really, in many ways, responsible for the customer service industry in New Brunswick… Even up until weeks ago, he would send me potential companies to see if I could be helpful to the entrepreneur involved.”

“He was just one of those extraordinary people who never stopped giving to our region, and singlehandedly, in my view, owned the podium when it came to the tech ecosystem in Atlantic Canada.”

“It is now evident that New Brunswick is considered one of the most respected IT communities in the country, and probably has the premier connectivity of any part of Canada, and it’s all because of the genius of Gerry Pond and his associates.”

In an interview before his death, Pond said it was good to see promising startups across the region. For Mariner’s subsidiary, East Valley Ventures, “we have choices (to invest) in very good companies in Atlantic Canada.”

In 2023, Pond celebrated the 20th anniversary of Mariner Partners, an IT consulting business he co-founded with Curtis Howe and Bob Justason.

The firm does business internationally. In the 2023 interview, Pond said the company employed 350 people in offices in Saint John, Fredericton and Halifax.

Since 2003, the company has grown to become the region’s largest IT consulting firm. By 2023, annual revenue was approaching $50 million, Pond said.

The firm develops software used by telecommunications companies and in major North American properties, including office towers, hospitals and entertainment venues.

The Macdonald Notebook asked Pond in 2023 whether he considered himself the dean of the Atlantic IT community, given his 45-year involvement in technology.

“I suppose you can say it is flattering. I guess if you hang around long enough, they are going to call you something, maybe pioneer, guru, things like that, dean – dean sounds good,” said Pond.

Pond said in 2022 that there was early luck for Mariner because of his cutting-edge work with telcos, which became customers of Mariner in its founding days.

“We got a break because they became customers,” he said. “(But) I like to think they gave contracts to us because they thought we could do the job, and we’d be the best people to do the job,” said Pond.

In that interview, Pond said it had been important to him to have Saint John as his corporate headquarters.

“It’s important the headquarters be in the Maritimes because that is who we are, that is why we are here, that is why we put effort into this, is to grow some type of legacy that continues beyond our lifetime,” said Pond.

Being local is “also making a statement you can do it from (this region), and as a statement to young people. They can consider starting a business here and having its HQ here for the life of the company. They do not have to move to get capital or people or a market.”

Halifax IT entrepreneur Chris Keevill was hired twice by Pond: first at NBTel in the 1990s, and then again in 2022 as chief operating officer of Mariner Partners.

“I’ve been working for Gerry for 35 years, directly or indirectly, or spiritually. He’s the boss. I’d call him the boss, and he was the boss. But he was a lot more than just a boss,” Keevill said.

Commenting on the idea that Pond invested in people, Keevill said: “It meant something quite profoundly different to Gerry. I know this for a fact… He wasn’t formally trained in business or engineering or accounting. He was a humanist at his core, and he was a student – I’ll say a scholar – of understanding human behaviour, and that skill allowed him to identify in people what made them tick.”

Premier Susan Holt described Pond as “incomparable,” citing him as a mentor during her pre-political career in the IT sector, including 21inc’s Top 40 Under 40 program, which he supported.

She told Brunswick News Pond’s willingness to give his time to help young leaders in the industry “spoke volumes about Gerry’s priorities, approach, and generosity.”

“The fact that there is a whole cohort of business leaders across our province who literally call themselves ‘Gerry’s kids’ is a beautiful illustration of the role he has played for so very many people and our province,” she said.

Lessons from Pond have stayed with her, she said.

“Gerry believed that if you wanted things to change, you needed to roll up your sleeves and get personally involved, as well as to build a system that will produce the people to take over the work you started. He did this with PDC, Mariner, East Valley, Propel, his work on poverty reduction and more.

“His ability to start things and then to set up their sustainability by mentoring and celebrating the people involved was a joy to watch.”

“He believed we could do big things, New Brunswick could do big things, and I could do big things,” said Holt.

Keevill regarded Pond as a champion of customer service, saying he created “a culture of innovation around customer service” that started with front-line employees, giving them “presidential authority” to solve customers’ problems.

“It was the truest sense of empowerment.”

Keevill said the 1990s were “quite a time” of rapid IT transformations, something that younger readers might not appreciate today.

“In the 1990s, high-tech existed in the telecom sector. So companies like Nortel built the world’s most advanced technology and the phone company was one of the major centres of technology advancement.”

In this space, Pond emerged as a leading technology executive during that period.

“Gerry was a true innovator. He was a creative person. He would see things. He would see ways to serve customers and solve problems in a very perpendicular way, not a linear way, and not the way most people thought. He would see it quite differently, and that was a real superpower.”

Pond is survived by his wife Anne; children Suzanne and Gregory; and grandson Henry. A private funeral will be held, followed by a public celebration of his life Aug. 13 in Rothesay, according to his obituary.

Andrew Macdonald is a Halifax-based business and political journalist and publisher of the online news journal The Macdonald Notebook.